Divine InnerBitchin’

Late Saturday afternoon, I arrived at the Bay St. Louis/Waveland exit. The exit is just forty miles from Biloxi, and Waveland had been ground zero for Katrina. The exit was marked with the typical exit markings; Lodging, Gas, Food…, but when I pulled on to the road that would lead me to the coast, it was immediately apparent the difference that just that forty miles can make. Five miles from town, even further from the beach, and the wind had destroyed everything within site. There were window shutters, and clothing, and roofing in the tops of trees and the gas stations I had expected to find were barely recognizable. Low on gas, I realized that I’d better find a station soon, because if Biloxi had been any indication, I might not find a working pump for miles, and in a couple of hours it would be dark.

I drove the road towards the coast and steered east at the first major intersection, a few miles later I found a working station and filled my tank. Bay St. Louis was just east of Waveland, and night after night I had seen the Bay Bridge on the news. I had seen the pictures of those huge concrete sections lifted away, and the blood curdling site of that trailer, devoid of tractor, poised at the very edge of one of those gaps. I can’t imagine the horror that the driver must have felt as he surely realized the err of his decision to push onward. As I drove east, I again began to make my way towards the coast, weaving up and down small roads, using the compass in my rental car for guidance as even a map would have been useless as most of road signs were missing. The devastation, if possible, was twice what it had been at Biloxi and extended much further inland. I eventually came across a sign for Main Street, and reasoned that it would take me through the heart of town, and as it was positioned north-south, I reasoned it would take me to the beach. CSX Transportation had performed a near phenomenal feat in having rebuilt the bay crossing in just a matter of months, and I wanted to see it for myself. As I traveled down Main Street, I noticed other cars ahead of me performing three-point turns and heading back in my direction. When I arrived at the end of Main Street I understood why.

Main Street had once been the center of town and ended at the bay where another road had once followed the shoreline. Elevated some 20 or more feet above the bay, Bay St. Louis had not been protected from the wrath of the surge that flooded through its streets. Facing the shoreline were the Hancock Bank building, a couple of restaurants, and a few other small businesses that spoke to the charming little spot it once had been. Now, it is a ghost town. Only gawkers such as myself go there now. From the end of Main Street I could see to the left of me, a little distance off, the battered and broken bridge. Just to the right of me was the new CSX train bridge. I tried to imagine what it might be like to be an engineer on one of those trains, crossing the bridge each and every day and finding the same despair, day after day, at either end of the crossing. I left the shore, heading back up Main Street and began to make my was westward. I meandered one half, to one mile from shore, and found that block after block, street after street, the conditions grew worse.

Close your eyes.

Picture Hiroshima.

Picture Nagasaki.

Now you’ve seen what I have seen.

Nothing you’ve seen on the news can prepare you for the reality of what has been suffered there.

I took few pictures because as I drove the new road they’ve built along the shoreline I found that there’s nothing left to photograph. If I hadn’t known that there had once been homes alongside that road, I would have thought that some timber company had recently harvested there. For one quarter to one half mile from the beach, there is virtually nothing left. The slate has been swept clean except for the mangled trees and occasional iron fence post that remains. Now, dotting the roadside are tiny little travel trailers. Within the couple of miles or so from the beach, there are hundreds of travel trailers, all so small that it’s difficult to believe that a single person could call one of them a home, much less an entire family. In Waveland, as in Bay St. Louis, there is no longer an upper and a lower class. Each block is indistinguishable from the last and regardless of household income, there aren’t enough construction crews in the country to rebuild what has been lost. Not any time soon. And, thus, the tents remain: the U.S. Army, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army. Large and small church groups and volunteers have gathered to try and bring some peace of mind to those who are suffering there.

To shed tears at the site of it all seemed selfish and lacking in any genuine compassion. And, I could barely catch my breath as I drove along one small street and came upon one small home that had been utterly destroyed and yet showed the strength of hope and faith and of the human spirit. The owner of the tiny home had placed a sign in one of the trees that still stood, “Please protect tree. Planted by grandson.” In the face of all that the occupants of that home had had to endure, despite losing their home and everything in it, they were trying desperately to hold on to something of what once had been. Now, a week later, I weep for them. And, I pray with all that I am that the people there will survive. They have survived the storm, but now face desperation and despair and it will require great strength and the compassion of strangers to get them through it all.

It would be dark in an hour or so and I knew that it would be difficult to find my way back to the interstate if I remained any longer, so I drove north again, glancing in my rearview mirror the entire way. I wanted to flee the pain and the suffering I had seen as I sped west along I-10 and as I passed through New Orleans, I barely glanced at the side of the road as I feared it would be too much for my tiny mind to handle. I love New Orleans, but couldn’t bring myself to pull off to Canal Street, not knowing what I would find, and thus I continued westward.

Texas! I said.

Perhaps, Texas will be far enough away from the suffering to put my mind at ease.